Article from CBS marketwatch says prices are going down. While this makes for good press, is it true?? Article presented below.
NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- There's a pricing shift taking place amongÿ some Year 2000 companies that will see those companies that offer "soup to nuts" solutions benefit, one consultant says.
The Year 2000 industry is moving away from charging clients ÿÿ "per-line-of-code" that needs to be adjusted before Year 2000 wrecks havoc on those computer systems that cannot process the change in dates, consultant Murray Newcomb said at a Year 2000 conference in New York sponsored by the Securities Industry Association.
Year 2000 companies such as Computer Horizons, Acceler8 and Intersolv used to fetch $1 per line of code, but as competition moves in, the price is going ÿ down to 30 cents, he said. "Line-of-code charging is going to the bucket ÿ now."
Companies that switch to charging, for instance, $5,000 "per seat," or per workstation platform, could draw more business. Reason: the end cost to aÿ firm with many workstations is likely to be lower.
"In 1986, there were no Y2K firms. In 1987, there were about 30 who could charge $1.10 per line of COBOL, and seven months later it's 20 cents a line," said Newcomb, who has advised firms in the financial sector on Y2K compliance.
That's one reason why there is consolidation in the Y2K industry, he said.
Still, other analysts point out that as Year 2000 deadlines near, firms might have to pony up greater fees to seure the services of millennium bug squashers. More news on Year 2000.
ÿÿ
The securities industry is further along in Y2K testing and implementation than most other industries.One Year 2000 business solutions vendor, Viasoft, this week said it paidÿ $7.75 million in cash, not including additional sales payments, to acquire the Canadian Y2K assessment and analysis software tools company, EraSoft Technologies.
"Combining the technologies of the two companies will allow our customers and partners to tackle century date change through a single provider, using Viasoft's. Year 2000 solutions for the mainframe along with EraSoft's. technology for the desktop," Jean-Luc Valente, senior vice president of marketing for Viasoft, said in a prepared release.
Viasoft is not the only company moving in that direction, Newcomb said. "A lot of people are going to be there; it's a matter of marketability," he said. . |
